Chapter 19
1
When the LORD your God cuts off the nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,
2
You shall set apart three cities for yourself in the midst of your land that the LORD your God has given you to possess.
3
You shall prepare the way for yourself and divide into three parts the territory of your land that the LORD your God is allotting to you, so that every manslaughterer may flee there.
4
And this is the matter of the manslaughterer who flees there and lives: whoever strikes his neighbor without knowledge, and he did not hate him yesterday or the day before.
5
And as for the one who goes with his companion to the forest to cut wood, and his hand is thrust aside by the axe in cutting the tree, and the iron slips from the tree and finds his companion and he dies—he shall flee to one of these cities and live.
6
lest the avenger of blood pursue after the manslayer when his heart is hot and overtake him because the way is long, and strike him in the nephesh, and to him there is no judgment of death because he did not hate him from yesterday, three days ago.
7
Therefore I am commanding you, saying, "You shall separate for yourself three cities."
8
And if the LORD your God enlarges your border, as he swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he spoke of giving to your fathers.
9
if you keep all this commandment to do it which I am commanding you today, to love the LORD your God and to walk in his ways all the days, and you will add to yourself yet three cities to these three
10
And innocent blood must not be shed in your land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, lest blood be upon you.
11
And if a man who hates his companion lies in wait for him, rises against him, strikes him fatally so that he dies, and flees to one of the cities of refuge
12
And the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, and he shall die.
13
Do not let your eye pity him, and you shall burn out innocent blood from Israel, and it will be well for you.
14
You shall not remove your neighbor's boundary marker, which the first ones set out in your inheritance that you will inherit in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess it.